Ascendant

Nym flew them around the wall instead of over it, despite Analia’s insistence that it didn’t make a difference. “They’ll be looking for us now. We’ve already failed at getting away without anyone noticing. At least we can make some effort to not walk past every guard in the city.”

In truth, all he wanted to do was crawl into a warm bed and go to sleep. His ribs were bruised from the kick; every breath was painful. His whole body ached from the all-over pummeling Malk had given him, especially his jaw where he’d taken a punch to the face. There would be a set of spectacular bruises all over by the time the sun came up, which would make him even more conspicuous.

He’d lost the spare set of clothes he’d taken, which made him curse the idea of wearing his old ones out. For all that the clothes they’d given him were much higher quality, they weren’t actually thicker or warmer than the set he’d bought on his first day in Abilanth. Even with it getting threadbare and holey, the old clothes were warmer and drew less attention on the street. But the new set was worth way more and were more comfortable. Once they’d gotten away from the city, he’d planned to switch over to them.

It was still late at night, though in an hour or so he’d have to start thinking of it as very early in the morning instead, and the middle ring didn’t have all the places to hide that the outer ring did. It was better maintained, better patrolled, with no abandoned buildings or convenient unguarded warehouses. Nym set them down in an alley outside the market district where he figured nobody would disturb them.

“I should have focused more on learning healing magic,” he said once their feet were back on the ground. “I don’t suppose you know any?”

“Sorry,” Analia said. “We could go to one of the clinics in the city?”

As much as Nym wanted to say it wasn’t worth the money, the fact of the matter was that he was really hurting. Besides, he didn’t even know how much money they had. While he doubted the pouch was full of copper or brass coins, that didn’t mean it was gold crests all the way up to the top either. He expected it to be a mix of mostly shields with a few crests and maybe a handful of shims.

“How much would that cost us? Both in time and money?”

“It depends on how badly you’re hurt. I think we should go though. Better to do it now while we’re ahead of everyone.”

“How much do we have?” he asked, dreading the answer but hoping it was more than they needed.

“I don’t know. I didn’t stop to count it.”

“I guess we should figure that out first.”

They didn’t count all of it, but Nym was pleased to see that he’d been wrong. It was mostly shields, but about a third of the pouch was crests, with no shims or wedges to be found. That actually worked out well for them as they could use the crests for big purchases and it wouldn’t be hard to break a few shields down into pocket change.

“We need to secure this. This is too tempting a target and it’s too easy for a pickpocket to get into. As soon as someone robs us the first time and pulls out silver or gold, they’ll be all over us. We could end up mugged and dead if the wrong people find out about this,” he warned her. “For now, hold onto it and keep it close to your stomach. Once we get out of here, we’ll get some travel clothes and packs and we can divide it up so that even if we get hit, we don’t lose it all in one go.”

Now that they were out in the city, Analia was much more willing to follow his lead. She was smart enough to know that she was out of her depth, or at least realized it quickly enough when he started warning her about the many dangers of being even moderately wealthy in the poorer sections of town where the guards weren’t a friendly force.

They set off on foot, Nym limping behind Analia while she led the way to the nearest clinic. “I’m surprised you know your way around the middle ring,” he said.

She shook her head. “We come here often enough for the markets. I’ve passed this clinic in the carriage a hundred times.”

They crossed an open square with a pair of guards who gave them a funny look, but upon seeing them heading straight for the still-open clinic and Nym’s limping gait, neither made a move to stop them. The clinic itself was a modest, single story building with three rooms in it. Nym’s scrying revealed a man and a teenage girl inside sitting at a table in the back. He didn’t recognize either of them, or the guards who’d watched them walk over.

Some of his nervousness about being inside buildings started to creep back into his mind, but he firmly pushed it away. He was fine. This was not the same situation. The more he fought that feeling off, the more it seemed to intensify, but Nym didn’t have much of a choice. He was starting to think he was really hurt in a life-threatening manner. That kick Malk had planted on him was just hurting more and more.

When they walked in, the man came out of the backroom and took one look at the bruise forming on Nym’s face. An aura of arcana came up around him, his a warm yellow with wisps of green in it, and Nym saw him weave it into some sort of diagnostic spell. “Mehta,” he called out. “We have an emergency patient. Come here.”

“Lost a fight,” Nym explained, though the healer hadn’t asked. “I took a hard kick to the ribs, I think that’s the worst of it. Getting harder to breathe.”

“Follow me,” the healer said. They got him into the exam room and laid hm down on the raised bench that was the centerpiece.

“My name is Jorak, and this is my daughter and apprentice, Mehta. I will be helping guide her through your treatment today. Don’t worry, you are in good hands.”

Analia waited at the door, one hand clutching the pouch to her stomach like Nym had instructed and the other worrying at her dress, leaving the fabric wrinkled all over as she squeezed and twisted it. She appeared more distressed than Nym was, but he had the distraction of watching the spell work that she couldn’t see.

Nym didn’t get a lot of opportunities to watch other mages work, especially not this close. He wasn’t planning on wasting this one. They went through a few diagnostic spells, one of which was actually first circle and seemed to mimic doing a physical exam, from what he could tell. The other ones were designed to look at his innards, at least according to the healer’s guidance of his apprentice as she cast the spells.

He also did his own diagnostics, assuring Nym as he cast them that his apprentice’s work was excellent but that he would always double check it, and thanked Nym for his patience. Since Nym was getting a free lesson from it too, he didn’t mind. He managed to squeeze a few questions of his own in there about what the spells were designed to do, which the healer seemed delighted to answer.

“It’s rare to get someone in who cares about this stuff!” Jorak said. “Usually they just want to be patched up as quickly as possible so they can get out of here.”

As soon as Nym showed interest, Jorak started fleshing out his explanations to be more than just instructions for his daughter. Nym took it all in as best he could, which was easier to do since as soon as the diagnostics spells started revealing the extent of the damages, Jorak had asked Nym if he’d like a pain relief spell to see him through treatment. Nym had gratefully accepted.

The healing spells weren’t terribly complicated, even for the internal bleeding Jorak told him he had. What they were was arcana-intensive. Mehta used two or three times as much arcana for each spell as Nym did to fly for the same time, and it took about five minutes total to fix everything up once they were done figuring out what was wrong.

“There we go. I’m going to dismiss the pain numbing spell now. You let me know if anything still hurts.”

“Everything feels fine,” Nym said, sitting up. “That’s amazing. I think I want to learn healing magic too.”

“Well I support that decision. God knows we never have enough healers. Maybe we’ll get some new ones from the Academy soon and I can get off the night shift. But be warned that it’s not just splashing arcana at the problem, young man. You’ll be studying anatomy and medicine for years so that you can understand what the diagnostics spells tell you and know what needs to be done to fix the damage.”

“Oh I didn’t mean today,” Nym rushed to say. “Just… it seems like a really useful skill set to have.”

“Useful he says,” Jorak muttered. “What do you think, Mehta. Has it been worth it?”

“Ask me again once you start paying me, Dad,” she shot back.

“Ouch! By my own flesh and blood, no less. But fair. In addition to the joy of occasionally snatching a human life back from the jaws of death, healers are paid quite well. Speaking of...” Jorak gave him a pointed look.

“Ah, right. The not fun part. The bill. How much do we owe you?”

“Eight shields.” Jorak looked down at the ratty clothes he was wearing and reconsidered. “Let’s say seven shields five.”

Nym winced internally. He knew it wasn’t going to be cheap, but at that price, he was surprised they hadn’t had to pay up front. It was a good thing they’d recovered the money pouch, even if they’d been forced to leave everything else behind. Analia didn’t seem fazed by the price tag, but Nym wasn’t sure if that was because it was reasonable for the services or because she had no idea how much money was actually worth.

Either way, she counted out eight shields and said, “And let’s say the extra five is for your daughter doing such an excellent job, shall we?”

“That seems like a good idea to me,” Jorak said. He flipped one of the shields over to Mehta and said, “here, and another five from me makes a full shield for your work.”

“Well thanks Dad. Not like I did all the work,” she said sarcastically, but there was a smile on both their faces and Nym took it as friendly joking.

The pair made their goodbyes and Nym walked back onto the street in much better condition. His limp was gone completely, as was the tightness in his chest. Analia followed him, and they got moving again. “Okay, our best chance to get out of the city is as soon as the mages guildhall opens for business,” Nym said. “We’ll stake it out and make sure Malk didn’t get there first. As soon as we know it’s clear, we’ll go and buy a teleport out of here, though… maybe we should pick a new location. I don’t know how much of our plans he overheard.”

Making sure no one saw them, Nym lifted them up onto a roof opposite of the guildhall and started scrying as thoroughly as possible while Analia watched for threats that resisted his scrying spells. The sky slowly lightened as the sun rose, and Nym didn’t see anything suspicious. Opening his eyes, he told Analia, “I think we’re safe. They should be open soon and we’ll be out of here. Analia?”

When she didn’t answer, he turned to look at her, only to see three men standing there. Analia was unconscious, held upright by one of the men. “I see you’ve learned some new tricks,” a new voice said from behind him.

Valgo stepped out of the darkness right next to Nym, causing him to flinch back. “You’re not the only one with tricks though,” the thief said. He stabbed a thin needle into the side of Nym’s neck. Immediately, Nym’s whole body went numb and he went down bonelessly to sprawl on the roof.

“Bring them both. The boy failed his mission, but it looks like he brought me something better,” Valgo said.

The last thing Nym saw in the pre-dawn light was one of them reaching down to put a black bag over his head, then everything went dark.